This message was preached on Sunday, December 18, 2022.
Triumphal Feast
Triumphal Feast • 019. 1st Corinthians 2:9-16 – “Received” Part 2
“Received” • 1st Corinthians 2:9-16 Elder Bryce Lowrance. In part 2, Elder Lowrance finishes the rest of chapter 2 in the message focusing on the word “received.” We receive the new birth and the gift of faith by a direct operation of the Holy Spirit without any help from us. Having been given faith, we are now able to receive the message of the gospel with joy and assurance of hope.
This message was preached on Sunday, December 18, 2022.
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- 09 Oct 2024
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This message was preached on Sunday, December 18, 2022.
♪ Jesus the God invites us here ♪ ♪ To his chitang bokies ♪ - Welcome to the "Triumphal Feast" podcast, a ministry of elder Bryce Lowrantz, speaking to you from the pulpit of Mount Perrin, primitive Baptist Church, in social circle, Georgia. - Lawyer say, yes, it's a fact, but they don't believe it. They don't rejoice in it, I rejoice in it, do you? Okay, then rejoice in this fact, that means he put his spirit in you. Rejoice in irresistible grace! - Mount Perrin, primitive Baptist Church, meets regularly two times a week. Our regular worship service is on Sunday at 10.30 a.m. Eastern. And our Wednesday evening Bible study is at 7 p.m. Eastern. If you would like to attend in person, we are located at 3749 Mount Perrin Church Road, Social Circle, Georgia, 30025. For more information about these services online or Mount Perrin, primitive Baptist Church, please visit our website at MPPBC.com. - Thank you for joining us once again for another edition of "Triumphal Feast." We invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter two for the conclusion of the message received. And what the gospel does is it doesn't try to just explain what God has done by some natural understanding because those examples fall short. Oh, big time. My punch in the face example came really short. It kind of got you there. Got your mind going in the right direction. But the only way that you can understand and rejoice is that there is someone, a hymn inside you. The Holy Ghost, that's a universal translator. No, it's a spiritual translator. If you were to have a conversation with somebody speaking a foreign language and you know none of their language and there's no cognates. You know what a cognate is, right? It's something in another language that sounds a lot like something in English. And so that, you'll catch that, I know what you're talking about. I remember when I was taking French in high school, we had a spelling test coming up and I remember writing in my notes that the French word for restaurant is the same in English. It's like, oh, I've got that one. I don't need to study that word. I got the test came up. I'd be like, I can't spell restaurant in English. But I had a little bit of understanding as my point. There is absolutely nothing in the natural human mind that can comprehend spiritual things. We must have this translator in us. This is what Paul is teaching. Is the Holy Spirit must be in us first, explaining to our natural mind what the spiritual things are that the preacher is saying. Now again, I'm not talking about the logical facts. I'm talking about how is it that our heart grabs a whole of it and rejoices in it? How is it that we see that and we see the wonders in it and rejoice in it? It is because the Holy Spirit is bound by our spirit in Romans chapter eight. Let's read that. I'm gonna go over and read that. Romans chapter eight, we'll start in verse 14. For as many as are led by the spirit of God, Paul is saying the same thing in a different place. And who is it a spirit is in us by the power of God? Remember how we receive that so that we can know. It cannot be that we know something and then we ask for the spirit. You cannot ask Jesus into your heart. You know how? Do you know how to open that door when you leave here in a little bit? You sure do, but you have no idea how to open up your heart and let the spirit come in. You don't, so you can't do it. That's the point of it. Jesus Himself said, "Why is it that you don't understand my words?" He says, "Because you can't." But those that are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!" The spirit itself, beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. When the Holy Spirit comes into us, there is a union between our spirit and the Holy Spirit. How does that work? I have no human explanation for you. And Paul doesn't give one, but do you believe it? That means the miracles happen to you because the natural man won't believe that but he thinks it's all just rational, one plus one is two. Two plus two is four. No, there is something marvelous that has happened that the Holy Spirit is now in us and has become one united with our spirit so that when we hear spiritual things, we can now rejoice in them because it's comparing spiritual things with spiritual. I can give you a natural thing that'll kind of give you the idea of what I'm talking about. We have figured out that the human mind, we have not figured out how the human mind learns. But we have figured out something that happens. And that is the synapses in the brain. That's the connections that happen in the brain. Happen when we hear something new and we compare it to something that we already know and our brain makes the connection. You got that? And so when we see something new that our brain has no concept what it is, it tries to make a connection. Those of you that are old enough to remember Time Magazine when it was still a magazine, we'll remember after September 11th, 2001, there was a picture that they put on the front of Time Magazine of the smoke coming up out of the Twin Towers and most people saw the face of a demon in it. There was no face of a demon in it. It was just smoke. And by the power of suggestion, our minds made a connection and started seeing features. Same thing when you look at a cloud in the sky and you happen to see a pickup truck. Did that cloud and those water vapors form itself into a pickup truck? So our mind tried to comprehend what was there. If there is no spirit in us, then when it comes to try to comprehend, it's gonna come up with some weird stuff. That's called philosophy. That's called vain commentaries. That's called not giving glory to God. Anytime we come to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and try to insert man's will, we're gonna get a pickup cloud in the sky. We're not gonna get the true understanding of what's there. And we're not gonna be able to fully rejoice in it. I mean, Paul explains this better than I want him to read his. Start in verse 13 again. "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. The content of the gospel message is the finished work of Jesus Christ and the spirit interprets that, but the natural man received with not the things of the spirit of God." Paul makes a very plain statement right there. A man that does not have the spirit of God him does not receive. This is the other definition of receive. The gospel is presented out there. Whether you take it in and understand it and rejoice in it depends upon what's in you, parable of the soils, parable of the sower you might know it as, three out of four times, the gospel is spread out there and has no benefit. But in the ones that it does have benefits, some it's 100 fold, some it's all the way down to 30 fold. What's the difference? It's what's in us. So this received is showing us that the gospel is not that power that comes in and irresistibly changes somebody. It's a presentation to all people, but those that have the spiritual ears. That's the reason Jesus said so many times, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Was he talking about these goofy looking things on the side of your head? No, he was saying those that have the spiritual ears in them, notice, but the natural man receive it, not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. See, there's the difference. Things prepared by God, the deep things of God, things freely given by God are facts, and the natural man sees them as foolish. You see that? It can see that it's, yeah, that's what it says, but it's foolishness. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually, I love this word discerned. I've got can circled in there. Why do I have that? Because the natural man that does not have the spirit of God in him cannot do this, neither can he know them. Paul just talked about the fact that we can know some things. Who are those that can know? Those that have the spirit of God dwelling in them. Those that do not have the spirit of God, natural man, cannot know why, because they are spiritually discerned. That's what I was talking about, that translator being in there. They're spiritually, they are interpreted to our spirit so that we can see them as something that's not foolishness. Now remember, Paul makes really long sentences and really long thoughts. This one's been going on for a chapter and a half, but back several verses, in verse six he says, how be it we speak wisdom among them that are what? Perfect. We talked about that last week. Now, the purpose of the preaching of the gospel is for the perfecting of the saints. So this has gotta be a different perfect because he's preaching to people that are already perfect. What's the difference? There's imperfect and there's perfect. There's unregenerate and regenerate. There's natural man and born again man. That's what he's describing here. And the example is, or the principle is this, it's God, it didn't. And let's not be mistaken. God does this to a lot of people, but we fill our minds with so much garbage. We don't hear it so much. I mentioned to you how this works. There are cell phone waves and radio waves and microwaves and all sorts of other things that are in this air right now. And if I have, well, I have in my stuff over there, a phone by Verizon. Now, this is not a Verizon commercial because Verizon reception out here stinks. But without that phone, I'm getting nothing. I need the phone to receive the message 'cause the message is the one that has the ability to receive that message and to interpret it to me. You see that? See that reception? You're getting bombarded in your head right now in my cellular ways from Verizon, AT&T, probably not T-Mobile. Even though they say they got the best coverage, I don't know, but you get my point. There has to be something that has the ability to receive, to discern what is there. Do you see that? That's what Paul is saying. What Paul has been describing is the reason that he preaches the gospel. Keep your finger there in first Corinthians and turn back to Romans chapter one. The theme of the Roman letter is written in verses 16 and 17 of chapter one. The Roman letter is basically a treatise on time salvation on how we are saved in the gospel. And Paul's gonna explain that it's not by natural reasoning and natural choice that you make a decision and you're born again. He explains election in the Roman letter. He explains the irresistible power of God. He explains how God handled everything eternally and that if we are receiving it by faith and rejoicing in it, that's time salvation. Notice what he says, "For I am not ashamed "of the gospel of Christ." Shame means something went wrong. Shame. The true gospel has no mistakes in it, so nothing goes wrong. If the content of the message is not the true gospel, it's wrong and it's going to eventually bring shame. It may feel good for a little while, but eventually it's gonna disappoint you 'cause it's gonna reveal that that other gospel, which is not a gospel, doesn't describe something that you need because it has a hole in it. That hole is your will. Paul's even gonna explain that in this letter, that the law could not do it, not because of the weakness of God, but because of the weakness of man. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, "for it is the power of God unto salvation "to everyone that believeth to the Jew first "and also to the Greek." It's the power of God that describes eternal salvation and it is the power of God that when we believe it, we feel saved gospel salvation, time salvation. Have you wanna word it? There's a great deliverance there. And it's to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why is it to the Jew first? 'Cause they preach to the Jews first. That's how I know this is talking about time. But here's the key, for therein in what? In the gospel, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. How from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. This is not a statement of something that you need to do. This is a statement that when you are born again, faith is placed in you. And when the true gospel is preached and received by faith, the true gospel is faith. The preaching of the true gospel is faith and it's received, what's revealed from faith to faith is the righteousness of God. Not the righteousness of God and man, if he'll just get it a little bit more right, it's all about God. And how is it revealed? It's revealed unto us by his spirit. How does he do that through the faith that is given to us? You see the connection? There is no way you can make a decision and cause all of that to happen. Paul has just said any decision that you make, you can't conceive of it. So if you did it sometime, make a decision to follow Christ. Your understanding at that time may have been that that's what caused Christ to save you. You had an incomplete understanding. And so I'm not faulting you, but I'm wanting you to grow. And I'm wanting you to get back to the fact that if you're gonna glory, you need to glory in the Lord. And if it's your decision that made it possible then you're glorying in yourself. I can't sugarcoat that folks. People are gonna say that's an offensive statement. I'm not gonna apologize. That's what the Bible says. And if you're glorying in anything other than who God is and what he has done, then you're glorying in the wrong thing. And oh, by the way, you're on the wrong side of a losing battle. 'Cause he said, I'm not sure my glory with another. He'll take care of that. Let's close this out, back over here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Neither can he know them. See, it's not an ability of will he know them. It's an ability, can he know it? It's not an act of decision 'cause he can't make the decision. Then notice this, but he that is spiritual, judgeeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. This is a tough text for me. I'm just gonna be honest with you. King James translators helped us out a little bit. If you have a center column reference, next to the word judgeeth, it says what? Discernive. That's the same word that was in the previous verse, isn't it? A spiritual person can now understand spiritual things. Somebody that is natural cannot understand spiritual things. And not only that, he has no idea how you think like you do. Why? 'Cause he's never been there. He has nothing to compare it to. Now, many of God's children are born again at a very early age. And so they don't remember a change in their thinking. They don't remember when they used to only see things one way. And then sometime in their life, they saw, wow, there's another influence in me. Some folks had an experience like Paul on the Damascus road where they could clearly pinpoint that it happened. Some other folks had happened and they didn't know when it happened, they just saw the effects. That's the biblical principle. Now, here is the sound thereof, but can't not tell from whence it cometh and whether it go it. I knew a man that was on the stage. I think it was a crossover rock and country band. He's playing keyboard for this group, pretty big crowd out there. And all of a sudden he said, I don't need to be here. He walked off the stage. He can kind of pinpoint at least when he came to a knowledge of what he was doing was wrong. But he knew that he thought one way before and he's thinking a different way now. But my point is this, as what Paul says next yet, he himself is judged of no man. The world does not understand you and it cannot understand you because the world doesn't have the spirit of God in it. And so what the world doesn't understand, it attacks. So don't be surprised if you're seen as a fool. Embrace it. If the world sees you as believing something foolish, you're probably believing the right thing. Now I'm not talking about conspiracies and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we're mocked for that, let us be mocked. Because Paul says, they're not gonna get it. We can explain it to them all day long. They can understand the facts of it, but they'll still see it as foolishness. And I love this last verse. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Paul is quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It ends with they that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength. It starts with comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. And you know what everything else is in between? Jerusalem, talk about God. Zion, get up into an high mountain and talk about God. And one of the things that it describes, y'all remember doing this one? I said, make a cup in your hand. All the water of the universe fits right there. And that cup of his hand. And it talks about who instructed God, who had the ability to say, God, let's make it this way. Evolutionary science is in a very dangerous place. You know how I know that because it goes directly and automatically against the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It takes what God has done and puts it in the hands of men. When the Bible says, who could instruct him? So let me ask you this question. Do you have the ability to teach God, let's think of something simple. Do you have the ability to teach God how to make a blade of grass? Well, I know how grass grows. I do, I didn't used to. I know now I've planted and failed at it several times and I kind of know how it works now, but I know this. I gotta have a seed and I gotta have water and I gotta have good soil and I gotta have good sunlight and I can't make any of those. So just to get a simple blade of grass, I gotta know a lot of other stuff. Who could instruct the Lord? Hey. What does he say? But we have the mind of Christ. What natural man can instruct you? He says. Remember, I'm not against higher education, but let me tell you, children, no matter what teacher or college professor stands in front of you and speaks to you. They cannot teach you like God does. And let me tell you this, they cannot take out of you what God has placed in there. They cannot take your faith away. We can fog our minds with their earthly understanding and wisdom and man's wisdom and man's knowledge so that we're not thinking about things, but faith never leaves us. Don't quench the spirit. That's what Paul is talking about. It can be quenched because our old man is still there. Paul is saying something absolutely awesome right here. We have the mind of Christ, whoever it was that was preaching and you believed the first time and baptized you, he ain't not in special. The only reason that you believed is God. The other fella is just a tool in the hand of God. Paul said, I planted Apollo's water, but God gave the increase. Paul says, I don't know how this happened. Other than the fact, I know that God did it. And so I'm gonna glory in God, not glory in the preacher, not glory in my choice to follow, but glory in that I was nothing without him and could do nothing to come to him. But he loved me with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness, he drew me, punched me. And I received the Holy Spirit. And when the gospel is preached, I now have the faith to receive that as the fact that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. Jesus Christ was born, I'm a virgin about 2000 years ago. That Jesus Christ, his parents being poor and getting to the town late, there was no place for them to stay. And so he's laid in a feed trough. I can believe and rejoice in the fact that God protected your salvation by taking him down into Egypt when Herod had lost his mind. I can rejoice in the fact that when it was time and Herod was gone out of Egypt, I have called my son. I can rejoice in the fact that when he was 12 years old, he taught in the temple, asking questions and answering them. I can rejoice that he turned water under wine. I can rejoice that he made the lame to leap, that he made the dumb to speak, that he caused the blind to see and the deaf to hear. I can rejoice in the fact that when he stood before Pilate, a mere man, he kept his mouth closed. Because he was there for me. I can rejoice in the fact that through the providence of God that that foolish man Pilate even said, so you're the king and Jesus could say thou sayest. I can rejoice in that. I can rejoice in the fact that my savior went to the cross and that he died for my sins. I can rejoice in the fact that my savior went into the tomb but he didn't stay there. He rose three days later and was seen by 500 at a time. Those are facts that cannot be denied. Lawyers say, yes, it's a fact, but they don't believe it. They don't rejoice in it. I rejoice in it, do you? Okay, then rejoice in this fact, that means he put his spirit in you. Rejoice in irresistible grace. Why? Because he does. He's delighted to do that that way. Why? 'Cause it gives him the glory. And you can delight in this as well. He's coming back. He's already fixed at all. The trouble that you're having right now, he already fixed it on the cross. And one day, not only will all the pain be gone, the pain can't come. God shall wipe all tears from your eyes. And there won't be the ability to even cry because it will all be joy and speakable and full of glory. And it will be the glory of Jesus Christ. Why? Because he sent his son for you. You received the Holy Spirit irresistibly. Now what I'm encouraging you to do is use that faith that he gave you. Receive this message for what it is. It's not me, it's Jesus. And if you rejoice in it, give all the glory to God. May the Lord bless you all in my prayer. ♪ Victoria's God what? ♪ We hope this edition of "Triumphal Feast" has been a blessing to you. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast and visit our website at MPPBC.com for further resources, including our devotional blog, "Little Brothers Thoughts on the Bible." Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you all is our prayer. ♪ To be forever blind ♪ ♪ To be forever blind ♪ Bye! (upbeat music)